Episode Summary:

Join host Sam Sivarajan in this compelling episode of The Future-Ready Advisor, featuring Adam Chapman, a pioneer in retirement planning and founder of Yes Money. Discover Chapman’s revolutionary approach that encourages retirees to spend intelligently, ensuring a balanced and fulfilling retirement.

Key quote from the episode:

"It's about changing a lifetime of habits of saving versus spending." [7:28]

Topics discussed in this episode:

• The Innovative Spending-Focused Approach to Retirement [1:49]
• How Ensemble Teams Transform Financial Advising [2:22]
• Tackling the Decumulation Paradox in Retirement Planning [7:28]
• The Role of Trust and Deep Understanding in Financial Advice [12:09]
• Psychological Aspects and Behavioral Finance in Retirement Spending [22:06]

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Link to Yes Money website [1:52]

Episode transcript:

Check out the transcript for the full conversation with Adam Chapman. 

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Sam 1:36

Hi everyone. I'm Sam Sivarajan and welcome to today's episode of The Future Ready Advisor. Today I'm here with Adam Chapman, a financial advisor. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam 1:49

Thanks for having me, Sam. This is super exciting.

Sam 1:52

I'm looking forward to our conversation. Let me quickly introduce you to our audience. Adam is a financial advisor and the founder of Yes Money, a retirement planning advisory firm, with a unique approach on how to plan for spending, not just saving. That sounds intriguing. Adam, can you share with us a little bit about your business, your journey and the inspiration behind Yes, Money. In a nutshell. How are you different from other advisory firms?

Adam 2:22

Well, I mean, sort of at first glance, like you've already alluded, I'd love to joke that I'm the financial planner who helps people spend money not save it. Of course, when you're dealing with clients, you kind of get that initial reaction, a little chuckle. They raise their eyebrows and they go, Well, how hard is that? Because I think a lot of people make the assumption that spending money is all the always the easier of the two actions that we have between saving and spending. Spending is the easier of the two. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Now, when I'm saying that kind of thing to other advisors, I think their eyebrows go up even higher because helping clients spend money seems very counterintuitive to earning revenue in this business. It seems a little crazy that when a lot of people are built on AUM models, which we also are that helping clients use the money they've saved doesn't actually help us from a revenue perspective. So I would say that that's key. Point number one that we differentiate on is it's a very, very different approach to the problems we saw with clients and this this sort of strategy and what we're delivering for clients has changed the way we design the entire firm. Everything has to be different because of what we do.

I guess even one of the things that we sort of changed really early on is that we are more of an ensemble team. We're all salaried, myself included. We're managing maybe about 40 to 50 clients between our team of four. That's that's including me and our revenue comes 100% from our clients. We're not in the business of doing commission sales anymore. We still offer insurance and investments. But one of the interesting things that we do, trying to provide the the solutions we want for clients is we have actually started we've waived our commissions on everything insurance related and the few things that we can't waive, we actually donate to charity. So we can still offer solution planning to clients, but it's always paid for by clients. And it's been one of the key things that we have had to do in order to make sure clients are trusting us as much as they need and working in a in a new environment. The financial services industry is changing very quickly. And so between our unique deliverable and the way that we have to produce it and do everything is required us to change and do just about everything differently.

So very early on, I started focusing a lot more on the planning aspects, and I just happened to have a lot of experiences with retirees. You know, I was, I guess, 25 at the time. So it was, I guess even a little bit bizarre that I was working with with all of my initial clients, four generations older than me, like a few generations or more. And that's when I started to notice some consistencies in their struggles. Most of it had little to do with money.

Sam 7:04

Mm

Adam 7:04

It

Sam 7:04

hmm.

Adam 7:04

was all trying to use the money to do things.

And I think that's what really sort of pivoted it. And there were a couple couple sort of instances with a with a few clients in particular that really changed my perspective on what our role as a sort of financial planner for retirees actually means.

Sam 7:28

Yeah. there's a very interesting story about the pivot, and I kind of smiled to myself as you said it. Look, it's key for all of us is the mindset. Why are we doing what we're doing and for who? And then everything else kind of fits into place. And as you're talking, I was finding myself nodding that it seems that spending and helping people spend is easy, right? And it's something counter to what we're trained as financial people to do. But you and I've talked about it before. It is an interesting and timely point. There is this decumulation paradox that exists, in much of the developed countries. So research in the U.S. and Europe that I've seen shows that, the retired are actually decumulating their wealth at a much slower rate than expected. In fact, especially the high net worth levels, a significant minority of the retired are continuing to accumulate wealth. They're ending up with more towards the end of their lives than they did at the beginning of retirement. And this is over and beyond what they want to leave as legacy, what they've already planned for. It has to do with, to some extent, the uncertainty and fear about outliving your money. But I think it's also what you touched on. It's quite frankly, it's about changing a lifetime of habits of saving versus spending. So that is something that people need work on. I assume. And it sounds like that's what you're focusing on. Adam.

Adam 8:54

Yeah, it's it's such an interesting thing. Once you go down the rabbit hole and look at the research, you know, I've seen I've done a lot of a lot of poking around on this myself. And I mean, the stats are showing that six out of seven retirees across the board, regardle of wealth levels, are dying with more money than they started with. Right. So, like, no, no one actually sits down and saves money with the intention of leaving it all and then some behind. To your point, you have some people want to leave something behind, but the vast majority of the money we save, we do so with the intention of using it, right. If you actually think of what we actually tell ourselves when we save a dollar, right, is we're actually making a promise to ourselves that the moment we're stealing from ourselves today, we're going to give it back to ourselves later, that when we retire, that thing we could have done with that money now we will do with it later. We're making subconscious, small promises to ourselves that we will eventually do something with this. So the big problem with leaving piles of money behind is it's actually a series of IOUs is we never cashed in. We didn't take those moments and do anything with them. And a lot of that is just driven by the fact that when we're designing retirement income, we're actually trying to balance two competing objectives, right? We want to, as retirees, do more with the time we have left, but we have this fear of running out tomorrow and spending money on the former makes the latter fear more likely. So the more we spend to do things today, the more likely we feel we're going to run out of money. So what we do is we do the opposite. We had our bets and we allow this fear of running out to override our desire to do more today. And it's it's a universal problem regardless of wealth level. And this is one of the most fascinating things I find with all of the research on this is that this is not a wealthy person problem. This is not a wealthy retiree problem. This is an every retiree problem that it it matters not how much you saved. In all likelihood, you will die with more than you started with. Right. And I think that's the most troubling thing I find with the whole all the data on this is that even the most average of worker who did their best job wasn't as good as in everyone else's job. Maybe, maybe not. But they did the best they could to save as much as they could. And even that person is going to die with more.

So I'd love to dive into it a bit. So it is a problem. It sounds like your approach is that cash flow planning is a critical element of retirement. Can you walk us through an example of how your approach to cash flow planning can give that retiree, that sense of confidence and to change these habits, to want to spend, not defer that and not cash that IOU?

Yeah, cash flow, I would say. And you know, I sometimes when people say the word cashflow, like they're thinking money in, money out in sort of an alternative way of saying the word budget, I guess I use cash flow in a slightly different form and it is definitely the backbone of our retirement income. Planning for a very specific reason is that if you look at how most people even show up on our doorstep, you know, they're coming in either with some online calculator data that they've tried to go out there and figure out, okay, how much can I spend? Like how do we when do I take my CPA? They're trying to solve these problems they have either with calculators or with, you know, maybe a plan from someone at the bank or something like that. But they all all of these advisors, these calculators, if you imagine kind of how they operate, what they do is they start by your punch in a bit of data. Then the first thing they're going to ask you once you've added your retirement objectives and your age, they're going to start asking you how much you have and you're going to punch in all your different account level data and then it's going to go, Here's how much this pile of money will produce, right? But no client in the world knows for sure if that number coming out, if it you know, someone has a plan and says, okay, you have $50,000 a year a client. Right. The client doesn't know if they can actually live off that. Right. How many people actually have a really great sense of how much they're actually spending today? So when we're building plans for retirees, I make this joke as well. We have to begin with our spend in mind. So we actually have to start with how much a client plans to spend in retirement, then work the data backwards that that question helping a client go through the process of identifying all the things they want to be doing in retirement when they want to start it and then more importantly, putting a price tag on it, which this is what cashflow planning for retirees actually is. You are taking the dream they want and having them price it out because every client is different, right? In the same way that we see retirees with different portfolio levels, what every client wants to do with their time when they're actually retired is very different. I used to believe and I thought that my specialization in retirement would make would find some efficiencies in the planning work just because I would see the same type of client over and over and over again, that that would make us more efficient at doing this. But I have learned over the years, by the time people hit retirement, they know fairly well what they're all about. They're no longer kind of chasing the Joneses and just keeping up with the wants that other people have. They have figured out what works for them. And so they know for the most part what they like to spend money on and what they don't doesn't mean it makes it easier. But when you can sit there and define what they plan to spend and write that out into a cash flow basis, then it solves every other problem. You can work everything back and help them realize that they have enough money to be okay. In many cases, we're actually using that data to identify with people how much they've over saved because that's a very common problem. And then that's also how we structure and design the retirement income that then supports that spending. And when they can see that, that's one of the first things that really helps everything, click that, oh, this income and everything that's been put together will actually support the lifestyle I want. It's not just some number that's been cranked out of a computer that says Here, here's $80,000 a year, and then the client goes, So what it is, is that enough? Will that get me what I want? And that's the piece that's missing from a lot of the plans that are out there. And my cash flow actually has to be the starting point. It is you have to put a price tag on the retirement itself and do it backwards.

That makes sense. Do you ever get the situation where retirees yes, this is what they want to do, This is the price tag you put on it? Yes. They have a sense of what they want to do, but that their dream retirement lifestyle is not realistic, partly because of finances. But it could also be that and I'm using a very trite example, but for example, golfing five days a week, 360 days a year, or traveling, on the road for the next ten years of your life, This sounds like something that we should want. But I I know enough people that have done it, for six months after retirement, a year after retirement, and then realize that's not actually what they wanted. So have you come across that and how do you deal with that? And you also have to answer the question whether that is something you should put a price tag on.

Yeah, So it's a very interesting one. And this kind of digs into

some of the cycle in retirement that needs to be sorted out with every client as you do have those retirees show up and they know exactly what they're going to do. Right. They they they have their hobbies figured out. They are ready to go and they are the ones who you tend to find

are ready to retire as soon as possible. Like they just want to get there and they want to get to these other things. But then you have this other group of people who are quite the opposite, where they actually don't know how they're going to fill their time. And it's one of their greatest fears is what am I going to do once I get there? And so trying to build spending plans for two different types of clients is challenging. And I think that's where part of our value is, is we work with so many retirees, we know a lot of different options. We know what all the all of our different clients are trying and attempting what they've tried, what worked, what didn't. So we can be a guide for a lot of people while they're working through this this cash flow process, because we've done it so many times.

Leading those two different types of clients through this process is a very different experience for sure. And I would say probably one of the bigger challenges, especially for the people who don't know what they're going to do if they're already fairly

cautious with their spending, one of the biggest challenges they have is feeling like they're wasting money trying something they don't like right? So often we have to put something in their cash flow that says, here's some try it money, just like go out there and try golf. Maybe you think that's what you're going to like. And I actually did have an example years ago where he golfed once a week through the summer and then thought he would do a whole heck of a lot more once he retired. So we did a practice one year and we actually had him take some extra time off and golf more and turned out he did not like golf as much as he thought he did. He just like the time away from work. What was interesting is he had to spend quite a bit of money for us to learn that lesson. And then in there, what he actually found when I started asking him questions about what he was enjoying, things that were finding some connection for him, he actually brought up photography. He actually found except when he actually had the downtime, he was actually breaking out his phone and taking pictures while he was on the golf course. Turns out he had an old affinity for photography when he was growing up, did a lot of the darkroom stuff with his grandfather and and we ended up pushing him in the direction of photography, which turned out to be one of the better, but actually more expensive than golf. But it started to reshape how we built that cash flow because we had the opportunity to fill in some of those gaps for him and almost in a way kind of give him permission to spend money just trying something.

I love that example. Adam. This idea of experimenting to figure out what you might want to do in your life, it seems to me that we've done this in our younger years. In our working years, we change careers, we change jobs, we experiment. And when we come to retirement, there is this almost, I think, unrealistic expectation that you get the gold watch. You've got now longer periods that you're going to be stable, that your interests are going to stay stable and too many people, run the risk of having these plans that they've planned for and never really tested or tried out or experimented. And they go into retirement with nothing to fill their calendar and are miserable because they think that they want to golf or travel

Yes.

or photography or whatever without actually testing it. And to your point, people don't take the time or want to spend the money in testing this out. But your example is a great one. It's money well spent. You know, you've got to plan for it. You've got to think about it and you don't want to overspend it. But far better for you to do it in your earning years and that you can do it in a mindful way. Test and experiment and pivot

Yeah.

using startup language here. Pivot rather than being stuck in a way and then suddenly finding out, three months after retirement that you have to rewrite your lifestyle, your plan, your spending, all of this from scratch.

I think, one of the toughest things with dealing with good savers, because when you actually look at a lot of retirees, that's what they are, right? We're not there. They have done the work to get to retirement. So they are good savers

and you're trying to work within the bounds and thinking and mentality of of these people who have conditioned themselves to be good savers. Right. So that's that simple example of, you know, wanting to spend money to try something. That's actually one of the biggest barriers to trying it is their fear isn't necessarily that they won't like what they're going to do, it's that if they don't like it, it's going to feel like a waste of money.

And how do you manage that, that conversation? How do you give them permission in such a way that they feel comfortable saying, you know what, Adam's right. I'm going to try this out?

Yeah, it usually takes quite a few years of getting the initial plan, doing a lot of supportive work to get there.

And I would say again, it depends on the type of saver you're dealing with because there are different types that I've slowly over the years been able to categorize and deal with a little bit differently. But I would say the vast majority of people we deal with, I would call what I call our manual savers, you know, their their pay came in, hit their bank account, and they had to take it from their bank account without spending it and put it somewhere else. Those are the people that I would say struggle with spending money in retirement the most because of the extra layer of conditioning they had to do to save. So with them, sometimes what we end up having to do if we're trying to encourage some kind of spending behavior, is what we'll do is we'll set up their baseline income and then plunk a sum of money into an account for them for a specific reason. It could be travel or it could be something. One of the trying some of these things. And then the goal is to spend it by the end of the year. It's kind of like instead of taking a savings target and working your way to it, what we actually do is drop the money in and then make them spend it by the end of the year. So then our meetings together are very much focused at that particular pool of money, not the investments and everything else. It's their spending pool that they have sitting in their bank account to start the beginning of the year. And we have to do this quite often with people who want to travel and then are traveling enough. We see this a lot with especially these manual savers.

Again, they're almost, I would say, minor psychological tricks that I've just worked on over the years to make some of these these things work a little bit easier for people.

And and I think that's where our specialization just kind of changes a little bit. Is it it starts to get away actually from the actual financial planning aspects. And now we're getting into actually deeper behavioral changes. But one of my concerns in working with retirees is you don't really have the time to recondition them to shift from saving to spending. You actually have to work with the behaviors they have and just try to try to modify them.

There's, generally speaking, not enough time to to really shift that that conditioning that's there. So we have to just kind of twist it, I guess, would be the best way of saying it. But yeah, that's one of the best ways I've found to encourage spending for people that are resistant for that reason is it's like, okay, we're going to put some money in this account. It's set for this particular target and you have to spend it by the end of the year on this. You know, in a couple of cases I've you know, I've joked if you don't spend it, you have to donate it to somewhere you don't want or, you know, like do something with the money you don't like,

you know, And it always gets a bit of a laugh, but it

most people are pretty good when they know what it's there for and it's visible. They'll do it.

That makes total sense. And would it be fair to say, Adam, that the core of this, as you say, it's taken years to get you there with the client? The core, it sounds to me, is that you built trust over a long period of time with these clients where, you're giving advice that they're relying on. You've also mutually developed this deep discovery of this client, that you have a better understanding of what it is making them tick, what are their hopes, their dreams, their fears? And when you put those two together, you're in a position to sit there and say, this is what is sort of holding you back and here's a way that we can find is small step, but a small step that we can put together that is going to help you find a way through. Is that a fair way of putting it?

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I kind of call it like a behavioral trade, you know, where we're not just giving advice. We're trying to take something that they're doing and struggling with and swapping it with a new kind of behavior. Right. We can't completely reverse everything that they're doing. But if we can make a pivot, like you said earlier, twist it, we have to make a shift and we have to replace some of the things that they have with new behaviors, but ones that make it easy for them to follow.

And I think that you can only make those kind of suggestions once you have that deep level of trust.

I find in most cases, you know, and this is this is even with with just about every retiree I bump into, is that from the date they retire to the date, they really start to step on the gas. It takes about 3 to 4 years to feel confident with the money that's coming in, plus deal with all the transitions that are going on at that particular time. You know, you get a lot of people where, you know, they're reconnecting with their spouse for the first time in 35 years where they're actually having lunch together. Right. That's an adjustment, as is the loss of social connections from work, the all the other things we leave behind, along with our salary, that there's this delay. So our goal with a lot of things is trying to shorten that gap for people. You know, we can add two more years in where we can go. Your your gap two picking up speed is two years instead of four. That's a massive, massive of return on effort and trust.

And again, part of the reason is I had a client years ago that said it the best and I'll never forget his words as we were sitting there with a couple and we were talking, they had a bit of an age gap. It's about eight or nine years. So he was turning 65. She thought, you know, she might want to work a few more years because she was quite a bit younger.

And as we're sitting there, he's kind of sitting nice and quiet and, you know, he kind of paused and he said, you know what? Like if you wait three more years, even if I'm lucky to have my health until I'm 80, that's that's 15% of my good years left.

And he turned to sort of three years into a substantially bigger number. Right. And we realize just how important three years were at that age. Right. So when you look at this delay that happens in retirement spending, this this sort of gap that exists, I think a lot of the role of financial advisors working with retirees is to try to shorten that, to try to give them as much a boost in the earlier years as they can. I mean, we even recommend now because of it, we try to actually have a lot of people, if we can, you know, pick the date they want to be going full speed and then retire a few years before that.

Yeah. And it's it's just a difficult

No, I think that makes total sense. Adam. That's a really interesting point that you make. The reality is there is a transition and too many people underplay that. It's not just that you're retiring on the date that you retire, you're giving up your sense of identity, that you've spent your entire life building. And unless you've taken steps and efforts to create or craft a post-retirement sense of identity, purpose, network, social and all of that, you're going to have this transition period. And even if you prepared, you're going to have this transition period. So the point that you're making that the importance of keeping that transition to as short as possible is critical. I believe it's a huge role that a financial advisor can play, not just preparing the financial side for retirement, but that whole mindset, lifestyle thinking and preparation for it. So it's probably fair to say that you've got a relatively narrow niche that you're focusing on in terms of your practice. There are probably a lot of advisors that are listening that worry that having that type of niche focus or practice is limiting in terms of the type of clients, the revenues and the income and everything else that you can generate. What would you say to that?

Yeah. I mean, I understand the concern because I was there too, Right. I was far more of a generalist in the earlier stages of my career.

You know, I would almost say what I lacked was any kind of focus at all. It was the more traditional sales approach of, you know, if you can get someone to work with you, you work with them and you just solve whatever problems they happen to have. So I think in a lot of ways people are already used to solving problems for clients, right? In the past it would be very much a let's use this product to solve that problem. Right now that we're shifting away from a lot of that. My argument has always been is that we are now the product that because fees are transparent, clients are paying them to us to directly, we are the product, which means we don't have to use every other old traditional product out there to solve problems. What we can actually do to become a better product for our clients that they actually want to pay for, that they want to engage is to solve just one or two problems for a very specific group of people.

And and I think one of the most interesting things is just the way that that changes your entire business. And there's a unique aspect in Canada that actually makes finishing

what's the right phrase for this? Not even necessarily more profitable because it is. But if you actually look at the landscape of the financial services industry in Canada right now, we have a whole pile of generalists. There's a lot of people who haven't specialized because we're still just on this tipping point coming out of a sales driven mentality to financial planning, problem solving. We're just starting to add some of these layers of behavioral advice and just sort of human first thinking. So when your niche thing, what's really interesting is that in a typical industry where you would get very specialized, that typically results in a client having to pay more for that specialized advice, right? So a lot of I think advisors get concerned about saying no to a bunch of clients. They would have accepted in the past to say yes to a much smaller group of people. Right. And then you would also kind of go, Well, if I'm going to say yes to a to a smaller group of people, I have to charge them more. Right. Which is true. And you will do that. But here's the beautiful thing. We still have a lot of people out there, clients that are spending a ridiculous amount on embedded. And there's a high level of funds when you can reduce the cost of investing, charge more as a specialized advisor, and the clients are still paying less than they probably are at another institution. So to me, I think there's a massive opportunity right now for people who really do want to specialize that you can get out there, specialize, charge more and still attract people that need that particular problem that you're solving solved and still their probably paying less than what they're already paying today. I don't know anywhere else or any other industry where that kind of opportunity exists. I'm not sure it does, but right now in Canada, it exists. You can you can become highly specialized, charge way more money and still save clients money. Overall, I don't think there's a better win that exists.

That's a insightful perspective. Adam and I wholeheartedly agree. The days of generalists, I think has changed. I mean, there will always be a role for it, but it's hard to distinguish yourself and differentiate yourself from everybody else in that approach. To your point, we're moving from a sales to a solution, from a product to solving a problem. And in that context we need advisors that are saying, here's a set of problems that I solved. Here is the type of people I solve it for. Here is why I am the handful of people that you should be talking to in this area. And here's what I'm going to charge. And to your point, that becomes a win win for the client. That becomes a win win for the advisor. And we see this in every other industry. I mean, in medicine, you have specialists, in different areas, who charge more than the generalist, You have it in law, you have it in dentistry, you have it in, almost every profession. In the financial advice space. We're just on the cusp, I believe, of moving in that role. And that comes with higher expectations of advisors. To a large extent, they're going to have to invest in some training and some specialization and skills, etc. But from your experience, it sounds like that's well compensated for in terms of both satisfaction in what you do who you do it for and the financial aspect of it.

Yeah, there's there's so much value to specializing and I would say one of the I think most uncomfortable things that has to change in the industry if you're going to niche right, is any advisor. When you get so used to you get these people come in, you solve a problem, you solve as many problems as you can for as many people as you can. Once you niche, it now means you can't solve every person's client or every person's problem. So you have to know what to do with the people who you can't solve problems for. But then it goes back to what a lot of the the legal profession and medical professionals do you refer them to another advisor? But think about how crazy that is in our current system, right? Where most advisors you just want to accumulate as many clients as you can get. We haven't really actually built up the structures and referral networks and supportive systems to say, Hey, I can't solve this problem for you, but I know someone who can. And there are another financial advisor just like me, right?

But by the way, those referral networks and we're not used to it, those referral networks in law, in medicine, work two ways, right? And I think that's what we will get as advisors that we specialize. We build up a referral network. We get known in this area, it's yes, we're referring clients that we can't help solve their problems, but we will get clients referred to us whose problems we can help solve.

yes, And it's already happening. There are a lot of other advisors across the country who are already digging into this that have specialties, have even different service models. Right. That's even a different. Another way to differentiate is just having a slightly different payment and fee service model. Right? I get a lot of people coming in, want my help doing the retirement income planning stuff, but the way they want to engage on that ongoing service doesn't require asset management for them. They want to pay a fee instead. Okay, great. I'm going to refer you off to someone else who can solve that problem for you and work with you and engage with you the way that you want. And then those people send their clients, the people who don't fit their service model my way.

It gets to feel much more like you're working within an industry of people helping. Instead of this, I'm out there trying to sell and keep everything myself. It feels far less combative than it's ever felt before for me anyways, especially seeing this this change work. And I mean a lot of that. There's even just so many more benefits to niching and picking a lane, you know, it makes the technical aspects you have to keep up substantially easier, right?

The first Home Savers account, how many how many retirees do you think I'm helping buy their first home? Right. I'm not. So they may ask me a little bit for their grandkid or something like they're curious, but I don't need to know the ins and outs of those plans anymore because the likelihood I'm going to bump into them is slim to none. But what I can do is I can probably walk someone through how to completely lock a life in whatever province they're in before they retire. Right? I can go deep down a rabbit hole in a few areas of technical expertise that a lot of people can't, and then other areas I just don't even have to worry about, which we're even finding is like, okay, so bringing in another financial planner, it means they're not learning all that stuff either. So we can train faster. We can do so many other things faster because of niching allows us to do it. And I think it's also that particular niche that we've done that makes the behavioral elements far more obvious because you see them over and over and over again.

And and I think that's that's probably one of the most fantastic things about getting hyper focused in the industry right now is it's so rare

and there's lots of different ways you can leverage it. That I think is a lot of advisors might be fearful they're taking something from themselves. You're not you're actually giving yourself a lot more than you realize. And I think it's a key thing that people need to understand if they're going to niche. You're not taking something away. You're adding something.

That's a great point. 100% in agreement with you on that? And on that note, we should move to the final segment of our episode. So I have a few final rapidfire questions for you, Adam, that I ask all of my guests. So, number one, professionally, what is the most important lesson you've learned over the years?

Yep. It took me a long time to see value in this, but I have always gone against the herd. You know, I think even on a lot of my social media stuff, there's a picture of a black sheep. That's how I felt in this industry for most of my career.

At first I didn't really appreciate it. I just felt different. But now I think the way the industry is changing, I think more people need to consider themselves and just just go. We can do something different. We don't have to follow the status quo anymore. We have different ways to create compensation, different ways to niche, different people to serve.

And I think as soon as you start creating and doing something different, you're going to find something a lot better than than what exists today.

I totally agree. and by that, I mean, you don't have to be different on every single aspect of what you do. But there's got to be something that sets you apart from everybody else in the industry, because otherwise, why should a client come to you as opposed to the ten others that are there around the corner, for example, that might be able to do that? So I think that's a great answer. Number two, what is one practical tip you would offer listeners? Keen on applying the insights you shared today?

Yeah, I think you have to be able to look at the problems you enjoy solving for people, right? We're all solving problems, but there's probably one or two that you enjoy solving more and and I think if you can understand what that is like, again, to me, the the appeal of spending money for clients was more that my background is very heavily based in psychology. I love the psychological challenge that goes behind that. That's that's what drew me to it. It did take me a while to figure it out, but I've had some conversations with people where they talk about all the different things that they do. And then and then one guy in particular, you know, his big thing was just helping people buy their first home. And it's like, what's so nice is in Canada now, like if you just made an entire business out of building the financial plans and setting people on their path to buying their first home, you can drive piles of revenue doing just that. It's a massive problem. Lots of people want the assistance and even though they don't have the assets, perhaps in the traditional models, use one of the newer models to charge for it. There are piles of people that will pay for it. And and I think that's where people need to be a bit more keen on honing in on that, that problem that they really enjoy walking people through and just lean in on it, even if that means you have to change the way you operate your business. I've seen a few people too hesitant to lean on it because they don't want to change the other model aspects. They want to stay a room or attached to some big firm rather than branching out and reshaping it.

I really, really like that, Adam. the problem that you want to solve who you want to solve it for. And doing that, I think you're going to create a sustainable business for yourself. You're going to be happy and you're going to add value. Adam This has been a really great conversation, some really keen and good insight to take away. If listeners want to learn more about you, your work, where should they go?

I'm pretty active on Twitter a little bit on LinkedIn. Twitter's definitely the best spot to find me, but I would say the only other spot to really engage and I would say this is this is something that's not relatively new, but the Financial Planning Association of Canada is something that's been around now for I think we're going on for years. But if you want to find the types of advisors that think the way that I'm thinking and some of the people that are on the leading edge, you want to join something like AfPak, it would be an alternative to what people are used to in the industry, but within the forums, within a lot of the stuff that everyone's working on, all of these sort of I would say, people who are on the cutting edge of doing the kind of work that I'm doing are in AfPak. There's some big voices in there. I'm very active in the forums as well, and it's just amazing. It's amazing to see other advisors share with other advisors that the competitiveness just doesn't exist in AfPak the way that it has existed in the past that I wish it had existed years ago when I was sitting out there feeling a bit more isolated because I was thinking and doing things different and everyone was telling me I'm crazy.

I think that was even myself. So as far as like connecting, I'm I'm always happy to have a chat. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn, but if you need other people to that to support this way of thinking in the changes you need to go through to revamp your practice, AfPak would be the other place to go. There's a lot of other like minded people that you can pick their brains and everyone's happy to share. Now, like advice, only planners, all kinds of people in there. It's it's fantastic.

That's great. Adam This has been delightful. Thank you for joining us today on the Future-Ready Advisor.

Thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me.